Re: [FT] Gunboats - points cost??

>Yes, the point of implementing gunboats is for campaign style games -
>something we're exploring at the present time.  However, an additional
reason
>is to find an equivalent to the Wing Commander & Star Wars style of
fighter,
>as well as the Arachnid gunboat from Weber/White's In Death Ground. 
Wing
>Commander FTL fighters - the Broadsword, Excalibur, Goran, and others -
tend
>to be large, slow attack craft capable of launching a couple of
>phase-torpedoes at ships.  I was trying to capture the feel of these
types of
>fighters.

In that respect, it feels like a good start on paper, please report how
they do
in tests.

>Nope, the torpedo attacks were intended as an either/or.  Even though I
was
>envisioning the gunboats at being better than fighters for
anti-shipping
>attacks, allowing them to torp *and* fire in a single turn is probably
>giving them way too big a hammer to play with. . . <g>
>
>The reason I increased the to-hit on the torpedo runs was to offset the
>reduced group size.  Uncontested by PDS fire, a gunboat group can
expect to
>average 6.4 points of damage per attack using their beam weaponry (vs
4.8
>pts/attack by a 6-fighter group).  The torp attacks would average 7
points if
>they hit on a 4+, or 9.3 points if they hit on a 3+.
>
>Hmmm.	Perhaps another way to balance the attack values is to make the
>torpedos hit on a 4+, but allow the gunboats to launch either a single
or both
>torpedoes in a single attack.	I'll have to cogitate on this a little
more.

Remember 'way too big a hammer to play with'? <g>  I would prefer it to
be a
2-shot system, rather than 2 1-shot systems.  YMMV.

>> Personally I would prefer to replace the torpedoes with single-die
>> sub-packs, as Mike Wikan proposed may moons ago.
>
>Could you run that one by me in detail, please?  I haven't been on the
list
>that long.

Sent in a separate post - to recap, 2pts, ftr counts as laden while
carried,
when fired does 1 die of damage that is scored as beams, but ignores
shields
(just like sub-packs)

Jared